About Me

[in a cabin in the mountains, Jim wakes up and bangs his head on the table he was sleeping under]
Alex Rieger: Jim, are you alright?
"Reverend" Jim Ignatowski: Yeah...uh ... who are you?
Alex Rieger: I'm Alex. We're friends, we work together.
"Reverend" Jim Ignatowski: What? are we, lumberjacks?
Alex Rieger: No, we're cabdrivers.
"Reverend" Jim Ignatowski: I bet we don't do much business up here!

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Friday, December 31, 2010

But remember that in this country one of the ways that black people were enslaved, one of the ways that segregation and other civil rights violations were allowed is that black people were equated to animals. They were called apes or chattel or beasts of burden. And remember also that during the civil rights movement and even during slavery, dogs were often used directly against black people. And so there is a weird kind of interconnection and anxiety when you start talking about, simultaneously, issues about race, and often when you're talking about black athletes and in this case also a black president, and then animal rights. And so there's a lot of emotions that, and old historical stuff, that comes up.

First off. Would someone please look into burying a public address network in every southern cemetery so that from time to time, we can remind those dead southern slaveholders that slavery was wrong? I mean, we can stipulate that slavery was horrible. Of course it was. It was a terrible injustice. But it has nothing to do with what a millionaire does to dogs in the 21st century.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.C. S. Lewis

Oh wait, that second one isn't funny, it's tragic. And when you consider that one of the dead was a newborn, and that the nine hour wait for an ambulance was the result of public sector union workers dragging their feet... well, that's infuriating.

With the unemployment numbers we've got, it shouldn't be hard to fill the job of any sanitation worker who feels he needs to teach the city a lesson by slowing down during an emergency. These guys should be put on a list. Call it the Next Time You're Fired List. Like Ronald Reagan and the Air Traffic Controllers, Bloomberg needs to lay down the law.

On Friday’s Inside Washington on PBS, during a discussion of President Obama’s failure to secure passage of the Dream Act in the Senate, after panel member Evan Thomas of Newsweek asserted that "stupid politics" was behind the bill’s defeat, host Gordon Peterson brought up a quip by humorist Jimmy Tingle that "if they all looked like Norwegians, there’d be no problem."

Well, Gordon, duh. Looking Norwegian pretty much solves all problems. The oil fire in the Gulf? Rosie O'Donnell's intractable halitosis? The fast growing back hair of Rachel Maddow? Mud slides in California? All are problems that could have been easily solved by the early application of looking Norwegian.

And, if you need more evidence: Adolf Hither, Pol Pot, Stalin, Ché, and that clown painting serial killer: all didn't look Norwegian. You can look it up.

By request: rainbow don't ask, don't tell. This repeal is something I've got mixed feelings about. I've always felt that the political people behind the DADT weren't the kind of guys who would join the military in the first place. And even with the repeal, I don't expect there to be much in-your-face flamboyant behavior in the ranks, because, again, those aren't the kind of guys that go into the military. I figure that if they've joined, and volunteered to go into harms way - if they really get it, understand why it has to be a team effort, then they don't want to be a force detrimental to the team. So this repeal won't change anything. (other than now they won't have to worry about a stray facebook comment ending their career)

BTW, I can't see that "DADT" without thinking it stands for the change in acceleration over time.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

I haven't been paying much attention to the 9/11 first responders bill. I figured that we would do what's right; though I couldn't imagine what kind of unique dust would be present at the WTC site. Certainly not asbestos. Still, I figured there must be some sort of scientific linkage for there even to be a James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. John Derbyshire enlightens:

You can start with the eponymous James Zadroga. Who he? Well, he was a New York City police detective who spent some time at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan following 9/11. He developed a cough, so in 2004 the Police Department put him on permanent disability status. With Zadroga’s twelve years’ service, that means benefits around ninety thousand a year, inflation-proofed, all medical expenses covered free of charge. For life, Officer Zadroga being 33 years old at this point. This kind of thing is routine in big-city police departments, one of the reasons that the finances of our states are in such an unholy mess.

That same year, 2004, the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund also gave him a cash award. At this point Zadroga was set up very nicely for life, with all the medical attention he could want, all paid for by other people — i.e. by you and me — and a handsome income for doing no work at all. Fair enough, you may say: he was a first responder, and I won’t argue the point.

Then in 2006 James Zadroga died. What did he die from? According to an autopsy report signed off on by New York City’s two chief medical examiners, he died after injecting himself with ground-up prescription drugs in solution — nothing to do with 9/11 at all.

So I'm going to be heartless on this one. Set up a fund, but make darned sure that money only goes to those who were harmed by the conditions at ground zero. Derb sums up:

Now look: We should all be grateful to those first responders who showed up at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Flight 93 crash site. Face this fact, though: We live in a nation where any widespread sympathetic emotion will be milked for cold cash by unscrupulous attorneys. These first responders all belong to well-funded public-sector unions with extravagant benefit packages. There are people here in New York City retired on disability from the Fire Department, nothing to do with 9/11, pulling down $200,000 retirement packages in their fities, with full medical coverage on top. Nobody’s going short of anything here. The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund added cream on the pie, as James Zadroga’s own case illustrates.

The James Zadroga Act is a trial lawyer’s scam, just like the Pigford rackets. Oh, would you like to know how many people will get payouts from the James Zadroga Act? Answer: at least 71,000. You didn’t know there were that many first responders, did you? That’s a major-league baseball stadium full of first responders, all with their hands out. Twenty-four of them are from Wyoming, which is a long way from Ground Zero. We know this because we heard it from Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who has been leading opposition to this shameful scheme.

(CNSNews.com) - At an all-day White House conference on "environmental justice," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.

Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created "Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force." Napolitano explained that the task force was charged with “identifying and assessing the impact that climate change could have on the missions and operations of the Department of Homeland Security.”

OK, well and good. Now can we finally get the Department of Transportation to look into why it always seems to rain on the weekends around here? And why isn't the Department of Energy answering my calls? There's a stray dog in the neighborhood that they could probably find a good home for.

...And I was at – forgive the expression – a Christmas party at the Department of Justice...

Who needs to forgive the expression "a Christmas party"? Would Nina Totenberg ask for forgiveness at having to mention "a Ramadan feast", or a "Bar Mitzvah celebration"?

If she was being a fatwa-sissy, afraid of a Jihad, I think her fears are unfounded. Claire Berlinski writes:

I have no good theory to account for the very notable increase in the popularity of Christmas decorations in Istanbul. There have been more of them every year since I've been here, but I'm seeing a really notable increase over last year. Christmas trees, Santas, Rudolphs, garlands, Merry Christmas signs--all out in force, and beats me what to make of it. I'd tentatively say that Turks love anything bright and festive, and retailers figure this looks bright and festive.

And I've never detected animosity from my Jewish friends and acquaintances, despite my habit of rubbing in the no-presents-for-you aspect of Christmas in my younger days.

No, I don't think Totenberg is showing deference to her Jewish or Muslim audience. I think it was activist atheists whose sensibilities she was protecting. (because I don't think even run of the mill atheists or agnostics are bothered by the existence of Christmas) It's the elephant dung/Mary, urine/crucifix artists who might be offended. Imagine, working all day to mock Christianity with elephant dung, then getting offended when somebody utters the words "Christmas party". Hey, you powered past the gag reflex for your art; try to stomach the fact that some people have different beliefs than yours.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to wish everyone, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, dervish, Christian, and Buddhist, a Merry Christmas! All except the activist atheists, to whom I say: No Presents for You!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Rahm Emanuel came up with pictures of boxes to prove that he's a resident of Chicago. But look what else he's got: a New York Times Vending Machine - in a locked crawl space that probably doesn't get much foot traffic. I'm suspecting the NYT didn't install it there.

And here's the thing: if the people of Chicago are stupid enough to elect this man, then they deserve him. But they shouldn't be surprised when he starts stealing from them. This is just a vending machine, much more valuable to the owner than it is to the thief who takes it for a curiosity. What happens when he can grift real green dollars? Think his sterling character will stop him?

I do know one person who might be interested: the vendor who had to replace the machine for upwards of $1000.00. ***Update:Searching the news to see if anyone else cares about Rahm Emanuel's theft of a vending machine, I find this older story:

Pollster Stan Greenberg, in whose basement Emanuel stays when he's in Washington, complained to Washington Whispers that Emanuel had often stolen the newspapers from the house Greenberg shares with his wife, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Anyone else getting tired of the increasing number of web pages with roll-over pop-ups, search boxes, self starting audio, and animated graphics? Sure, the text you wanted to read is right behind that expanding ad, but you can't scroll your way around it. You have to find the "close" button, or "skip this" button. Or you can do what I'm doing more and more often these days: close the whole dag-nabbit window and go search for the information somewhere else.

OK and while I'm being crabby, does every single youtube video need ad clearing before you can see the whole screen? Either that, or a 30 second commercial that you have to sit through to watch a 60 second clip. Really, do they not know that everybody ignores those ads? And if they do focus on them it's only to click them out of the way, or add them to a personal boycott list.

Alright, I'm rolling now: Why can't you watch a TV program these days without the station logo, the "coming on next" strip (with graphics, sometimes animated), the series finale announcement, and more, cluttering up the screen? I saw a Buffy the other day that had all the above, plus a "Tweets from Fans" box, plus Dave Attell humping a lamp post, plus Three Gays and a Girl sparkling in another corner, and somewhere near the center of the screen, in a tiny area about the size of a quarter, I could see the corner of Zander's chin. Which was good because at least it let me know that I was on the right station. Have you ever spent several minutes looking for your program through the forest of dreck only to find you're on the wrong channel?

What the heck is this no more labels business? We don't need fewer labels, we need more.

For instance, why isn't there a word for a Speaker who navigates the tunnels like everyone else most days, but..

...parades her gavel through the crowd tauntingly when she thinks she can get just one person out of a crowd of thousands to be rude back to her?

And then hears a racial epithet that wasn't there. "Well I think it's ok to pretend they said it because you know that it's just the thing they would have done if I had been a tiny bit better at taunting."

An Austrian court has recently fined a citizen for yodeling while mowing his lawn, according to a report in The Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

The citizen, 63-year-old Helmut G., was told by the court that his yodeling offended his next-door Muslim neighbors, who accused him of trying to mock and imitate the call of the Muezzin.

Don't get me wrong, some yodeling could be considered criminal, but come on, in Austria it's been around longer than the Muezzins. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, and I might be, seeing as I just made it up, but Austrian sheep herders used to "yodel home" their flock since before the time of Christ. Sheep just naturally flock to the sound.

If anything, the Austrians should take the Muezzins to court for calling their sheep out of the fields five times a day. Sheesh, ya know?

Rich Lowry writes, concerning continued ethanol-fuel support in the proposed tax compromise:

In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington’s gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America’s corn crop...

...Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, the Democratic and Republican senators from Iowa respectively, stand at the doors of Congress declaring: Ethanol now, ethanol forever. They have graced the Obama-McConnell tax bargain with an extension of a tax credit for ethanol that costs about $6 billion a year, and with an extension of a tariff on ethanol imports. Ethanol is so uneconomical that Congress supports it three different ways — with a mandate for its use, a tax credit to subsidize it, and a tariff to keep out competitors. Rarely are so many levers of government used to prop up one woeful product.

This whole November 2nd was about not wasting money on stupid pork. But here we go again, subsidizing a program that even green hippie vegans are denouncing.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have never "huffed" spray paint or sniffed glue, and consequently have retained my ability to do math. And math pretty much dictates what you think about ethanol subsidies.